


my poor head of woe

by casualbird



Series: dad! heaven! now! [2]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: BACK ON MY BULLSHIT, Developing Relationship, Gay dads, M/M, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Post-Blue Lions Route (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Post-Canon, Repression, there will prob be a continuation and it will prob be spicy, yes i am serious about this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-09
Updated: 2020-02-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:13:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22626136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/casualbird/pseuds/casualbird
Summary: It makes Gilbert’s heart leak, the softness of Hanneman’s hands. Thin-skinned, yes, and often cold, discolored toward his fingertips from decades of spellcraft, but. Smooth. Genteel.After the war, Gilbert and Hanneman spend their evenings together.
Relationships: Gilbert Pronislav/Hanneman von Essar
Series: dad! heaven! now! [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1674718
Comments: 41
Kudos: 77





	my poor head of woe

**Author's Note:**

> i can't believe that i'm piloting this of all bandwagons but i'm deadass serious. in their supports hanneman tries valiantly to befriend gilbert, watches closely while he trains, calls him 'mesmerizing.' that is a direct quote.

In the years since the war, it’s become a comfortable habit: when Hanneman’s not planning lessons, when Gilbert is feeling mostly alright, they take tea together after dinner. At first it was in the gardens, stolen away deep into the hedgerows, but with the nip of autumn… They’d adjourned, once, to Hanneman’s rooms, and never gone back.

They’re a little cramped, just a small sitting room, a restroom, a bedroom that Gilbert’s still never been inside. Still, Hanneman’s made a home out of them the best he can—which is not excellent for the cramped space, because Hanneman’s idea of homemaking is curating an obsessive collection of anything that he might have ever once found interesting. He’s got a shelf of antique spectacles, and below that, his collection of false teeth. Teetering stacks of dusty books, scrolls, even an ancient clay tablet in an ornate wooden box. He’d shown it to Gilbert, once, their fingers hovering over the cuneiform script. Told him, in a hushed, reverent tone, that it was thought to be a writing from the very hand of Saint Macuil.

It was—something about Crests, that was the interest to Hanneman, but… He’d known that pious Gilbert would have found his own brand of awe in it, and wholeheartedly, unreservedly invited him to.

Gilbert thinks often on that evening. On Hanneman’s collections, broadly, on Hanneman himself.

Hanneman, who just then sits perilously close to Gilbert’s side on his faded crushed-velvet loveseat, so close he can feel the tingling heat of him, smell the honeyed tea on his warm breath.

This, too, is a habit of theirs.

Gilbert feels as if he’s—as adjusted to it as ever he will be, Hanneman so close to him. Plying him with sparkling conversation, kind words, tea and crackers. Gentle touches, sometimes, on his arm, his shoulder. He holds Gilbert’s hand, sometimes, even though it shakes, turns clammy.

It makes Gilbert’s heart leak, the softness of Hanneman’s hands. Thin-skinned, yes, and often cold, discolored toward his fingertips from decades of spellcraft, but. Smooth. Genteel.

He thinks they’re something like a woman’s hands would be, and isn’t certain how to feel that he thinks that.

At the moment, though, Hanneman’s hands are reaching elegant for the tea tray, refilling his cup, pouring the last dregs out of his chipped teapot.

“Oh,” he says, as briskly as ever. “I do apologize, I ought to have asked if you wanted more.”

Gilbert only smiles, shakes his head. “It is just as well,” he says, in that perennial dirgelike tone of his, barely above a murmur. “I—must be taking my leave, soon.”

The clock on the wall—any number of the clocks on the wall, and on the shelves, the tables—reads just before nine. It’s usually when Gilbert gives his regrets, stands unsteady, is each and every time shocked by the chill of empty air. Makes the long trek back to his own room, humbler, barer, generally stops along the way to catch his breath.

Hanneman’s busy room, his bright conversation, persistent affections—they scatter him. Overwhelm.

What makes it worse is how much he adores it. Craves it, when circumstance dashes their plans, when he spends the evening alone with a book, a whittler’s knife, a stiff block of wood.

Even now, with Hanneman so near him, making Gilbert’s blood lurch thickly through his veins—he wants to stay.

It always seems as if Hanneman knows that, the brilliant insightful spark in his eye piercing right through him, laying bare how much internal fol-de-rol goes into one of their evenings together. Still, he doesn’t pass judgment—at least not outwardly. Just relaxes back onto the loveseat’s sagging cushions, tilts his body invitingly closer.

Gilbert sighs, allows their shoulders to touch. With Gilbert’s buttoned-up attire, Hanneman’s crisp fashion, there’s generally a half-dozen layers of starched cloth between their bodies at a given time, and though Gilbert is acutely conscious of that… it never feels like it. He can sense the sharp point of Hanneman’s shoulder against the bulk of his own, tries not to let himself infer what it would feel like were they bare.

Hanneman nudges him, just gently, and—it’s comforting. It breaks him out of whatever daydream tomb he’s fallen into, makes him huff a little laugh.

“You are aware,” he says, and his voice is silken, warm, “that you are welcome to stay as long as you’d like.”

Gilbert is. It is not the first time this offer has been extended. It is not the first time he has turned it down.

He is still waiting on the first time he will accept, if ever it comes.

Letting out a sigh that borders on wistful, Gilbert shakes his head. “You are too good to me,” he mumbles, and just catches a ‘my dear’ behind his teeth. “Thank you for the tea, for your time… everything.”

The smile that Hanneman gives him at that is becoming a familiar one, becoming Gilbert’s favorite. It’s not the sharp curl of his lips when he’s teasing, not the silent eureka of a little discovery made, a tome found in his erstwhile personal archive, just—something soft. Private, gentle like the way he touches Gilbert sometimes, to tuck a stray lock of hair behind his ear.

Gilbert’s own lips purse and. The goddess save him. He wants.

The silence stretches out just beyond what’s comfortable, but Hanneman rescues him as always.

“You are more than welcome to it, Gilbert,” he tells him, and the way that clear voice holds his name is not doing Gilbert’s resistance any favors. “Any time. I—trust I will see you again tomorrow?”

He inclines his head yes. Thinks that it must be beyond time for him to stand, to gather up his coat from the overcrowded rack by the door. Does not.

“Excellent. Then—before you leave… might I trouble you for a kiss?” Hanneman is still smiling—perhaps he thinks that if he arranges his words cleverly, Gilbert’s reticence will wane.

It works. Everything Hanneman tries on him, every little antique charm—eventually, it always works.

Gilbert tips his head obligingly, does not move. It’s alright—Hanneman comes to him, slowly, bracing one fine hand against his arm, the other darting up to doff his monocle. His head comes to an angle, exposing the slender edge of his jaw, the pale beginning of his neck.

With a shaky breath, Gilbert lets his eyes close, lets himself be kissed. Hanneman is careful, always, and slow, his lips just barely parted. Gilbert finds his mind occupied, as it often is, with the matter of how he manages to keep them so soft. His own are almost always chapped.

It doesn’t stay with him for long, though, replaced in short order by the slow slide of Hanneman’s hand up to his shoulder, then resting gently at his cheek, conforming to the angle of his jaw. Gilbert prays, briefly, that he’s shaven himself well enough, that those soft hands aren’t scratched.

And then that’s gone, too, and all that’s left is the sensation of it, the tender, drawn-out movements, the warmth of Hanneman’s mouth. It’s not—the most intimate kiss of Gilbert’s life, not the closest or most urgent, Hanneman making little advance toward occupying his mouth, but. Gilbert can still taste him, a little, can still feel the slight brush of his breath, the blooming heat of his palm.

He sighs into the kiss, an instinct he can’t arrest, and—feels himself lurch, combust with shame. His face, when he pulls back, when Hanneman’s eyes flutter open, is doubtlessly crimson, perspiration collecting on his brow.

Hanneman folds his hands back in his lap, the soft shock on his face fading into kindness, something that Gilbert hopes isn’t pity. Smiles that intimate smile again, the one that rarely leaves this room, and it—to his credit, it is a balm to the startled cat in Gilbert’s heart.

“Are you quite alright, Gilbert?” His voice is like—there is a brush on the desk in his office, made to sweep dust off of parchments without smearing the ink. It’s an ornate thing, costly and antique, made from fine white feathers. His voice is soft, light like that.

“I am fine,” Gilbert says, and finds that he means it just slightly more than he thought he would. One clumsy hand smooths over his hair, while the other just—jerks, impotent. Abruptly, he stands.

The nip of empty air confronts him again, and instantly he wishes he was at his—his companion’s side again. “I really must be going.”

Hanneman just nods, looking, as ever, as if he completely understands. “Of course,” he says, gentle like the brush of his lips, the touch of his fingers. “But Gilbert—if ever there is something wrong… I do hope that you’ll let me know. I want—our intimacy, such as it is, to be comfortable. Pleasurable,” he adds, with just the slightest tinge of sheepishness, “for the both of us.”

Gilbert is struck hard, like he is at least twice a day, with the sentiment that he does not deserve Hanneman’s patience, his affection. And this—is a familiar pang, one that he can take, but on the tail of it comes… a vision, almost, of what Hanneman suggests. A day when Gilbert feels he can be with him freely, indulge without shame in his careful caresses, light-handed kisses. Perhaps more.

Another wave of shame breaks over him, and he makes brusquely for the door. Takes up his coat, hastens shaking to get his arms through its threadbare sleeves.

Stops.

“I am sorry,” he murmurs, almost too quietly. “I—you are—dear to me. Someday… I hope that I will be able to be as you wish me to.”

He doesn’t wait to hear a response, just—turns away, gives a sharp twist to the doorknob. Fumbles his body across the threshold into the drafty corridor, and does not breathe again until his misplaced adrenalin has taken him meters away.

**Author's Note:**

> okay so i have to applaud your bravery if you've gotten this far. please let me know what you thought, because i'm sure you only came here out of morbid curiosity and it must be interesting.
> 
> if by some oddity you feel inclined to follow me on twitter, and if you are 18+, it is [here.](https://twitter.com/bird_scribbles)
> 
> title is from ciaran lavery's shame, which, coincidentally, is the emotion i ought to feel for stealing from such a delightful song to title this monstrosity.


End file.
